


arms that hold the universe

by robpatFF



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 07:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robpatFF/pseuds/robpatFF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a universe where he smiles a little, sleepy and slow, and leans down to kiss Louis good morning. Where he thinks <i>there is a universe inside me, inside you</i> and that is true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	arms that hold the universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RazzleBrazzle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RazzleBrazzle/gifts).



> So this is for Brie, who is lovely and wonderful and should be happy all the time. So, here. Also, I don't own anything, don't know anyone, et cetera. This was only looked over by thine own eyes, alas.

They say that there are different universes. Some where people are together and some where they are not. Harry’s heard the tales, heard of heartbreak and, “In a different world, we’d be together.” He’s not sure about all that, about the universe and its ever present multiplication, about people being pushed together and pulled apart, about chances and odds and probabilities, and not knowing if this earth, with its oceans and land and overwhelming _space_ is different from another.

It’s a bit odd to think about, so naturally Harry does think about it quite often.

There could be a different Harry out there, in a different time and in a different universe. He wonders about that, if he looks the same in all of them. If he’s still a bit knock-kneed, and if his feet still curl inwards. He’s not heard anything about that, the minor differences, the superficial ones like hair color and eye color and if the curve of his mouth changes when he smiles. 

In a different universe, he imagines he’d have different things to smile about anyway. 

In all these ever-changing universes he’s heard about in the stories, no one ever mentions the ones that make sad. There have to be some of those, universes where you never meet the person you’re meant to. Universes where it rains every day without the promise of sunshine, worlds where the colors are dull and the sky is grey and the music is turned down too low.

No one talks about those universes, the ones where maybe Harry gets his heart broken. The ones where he hides in the bathroom and presses his fingers to his eyes until he sees spots. Ones where he goes out in the rain, just because. Because the splatter of rain against windowpanes isn’t quite sad enough. He has to feel it, be a part of it, feel the cold, wet water seeping under his skin and settling in the crevices of his bones.

No one talks about those universes. The sad ones. The ones hidden behind flamboyant, glittered galaxies and bursts of bright, imploding stars. 

No one’s ever told Harry about those universes, but he wonders sometimes. In the dead of night when he can’t sleep. 

He wonders more though, about the universes he has heard about. The infinite and alternate ones where people meet who they’re meant to meet and the timing is always right. The universes where things don’t go wrong, only right. The ones where the sun shines bright but not too hot, the ones where it rains only when you want it to, on those lazy mornings when the bed feels too comfortable and the sheets drape just right and Harry thinks, “I want to sleep in today,” so he does, in those universes. 

He wonders about them all, in the shadows of the night. When his skin’s still buzzing from a show and his fingers tap restlessly against the balcony railing, and he looks down and thinks _which universe is this._

“What are you doing?” Louis says from behind him. He’s got sleep in his voice, the tell-tale rasp that speaks of nerves and adrenaline and staying up looking at the stars instead of sleeping for too many nights in a row.

Harry shrugs, and points up at the sky. “Have you ever wondered about it?” he asks. “About the universe, I mean?”

Louis comes up behind him. His skin is sleep-warm and his t-shirt soft and rumpled and Harry breathes him in. He wonders if he does this in the other universes, inhales deep and closes his eyes and breathes Louis in like this.

“I try not to,” Louis tells him. “It makes me feel very small. Like, insignificant almost. It’s quite irritating.”

In this universe, Louis smells like lingering smoke. Like the shampoo he nicks off Zayn. Like something sweet that Harry misses when he’s not around. 

In this universe, Louis noses at Harry’s jaw and and kisses him there, soft and lingering. 

“You are a part of the universe,” Harry says. “So it is impossible for you to be insignificant. It would miss you, I think, if you were gone.”

Louis smiles, mouth sloping up in a tired, sleepy sort of curve. “You are quite silly,” he mumbles quietly, words muffled a bit into Harry’s neck. “How d’ya know so much about the universe anyway?”

“You are a part of the universe,” Harry repeats. “And I know about you.”

\-----

Mornings are quiet after a show. Harry lets the sun wake him up, with its light filtering in through the blinds and its warmth felt through the heavy blankets.

Mornings are slow in this universe, today at least. They could be fast in others, or he could sleep in. He wonders about that. If he’s a morning person in all these alternate realities, or if some days he doesn’t wake up until noon, if a different Harry would scoff at the thought of being awake this early.

He doesn’t mind it though, so he settles and feels Louis shift next to him. This is nice and it’s easy and Harry lets his fingers wander over the bird that’s embedded in Louis’ skin. Over the compass and the small, little world he carries about with him. A piece of the universe on its own.

“Too early,” Louis murmurs. His eyes are still closed, voice slurred and slow and half-asleep still, and he turns over, away from Harry.

Harry lets his fingers graze over the smooth, tanned skin of Louis’ back. It seems a bit empty, at first, without the black ink carefully etched into it, without the press of a needle against skin.

It’s not though. Empty. There are freckles smattered across the back of Louis’ shoulders, faint little dots that connect together like constellations. Harry tries it, tries to connect them, but a universe is more complex than its connections, more overwhelming in its infinite chaos than its ability to make Big Dippers in the sky. 

But still. There is a constellation across Louis’ back. And Harry knows there is another over the bridge of his nose, when the sun shines down too bright. Louis is a mess of constellations, of bright, beaming stars, of patterns and shapes and infinite, maddening chaos.

“What are you doing?” Louis mumbles, an echo of last night. There is still sleep in his voice, heavy and ladened down. He barely moves, only shivers a little under Harry’s fingers, goosebumps rising over flesh. 

“Exploring,” Harry says, and Louis lets him.

He moves on, fingers dragging careful and gentle over Louis’ skin, careful of lovebites and bruises in the shape of fingertips. Louis still hisses a bit, when Harry presses into them, just to see. Hisses and moves into the touch, remembering what they are and how they got there and when they can make them again.

But Harry moves on.

Drags his fingers up the deep valley that’s etched over Louis’s spine. It tastes as sweet as the rest of him, Harry knows. So he shifts down on the bed and kisses up the length of it, smiling against the slow, soft shudder Louis gives.

“Tease,” he murmurs.

Harry shakes his head, curls tickling Louis’ skin. “M’busy,” he counters. “There is a universe running along the length of your spine, did you know?”

He feels Louis sigh, the gentle exhalation of air that leaves him. “Tell me,” is all he says though.

“Just here,” Harry says, and he drags his fingers up Louis’ back, nails scratching lightly against the skin. 

Louis laughs, the sound a bit croaky and soft. He turns though, so Harry can see his face now. The pillow creases etched in pink and the soft mess of his hair, falling into his eyes. “Where do you come up with these things?”

Harry shrugs. He moves so he’s laid on top of Louis a bit, heavy and comfortable. “In your eyes too,” he says. And there is, little bits of stardust lingering in Louis’ eyes, sparkling a little when he smiles, when he teases, dusting the crinkles that settle and will turn into crow’s feet eventually. 

“Where else, then?” Louis asks. “How many hidden little universes do I have?”

There is a universe, Harry realizes, where he doesn’t have this. A Louis underneath him. The morning sun shining bright and warm into the room. There is a universe out there, maybe more than one, where Harry can’t connect the constellations on Louis’ back, can’t catch the bits of stardust when his eyes crinkle too much, can’t kiss the universe along his spine, on the back of his knees, in the life line that runs along his palm.

There is a universe out there, maybe more than one, where Louis doesn’t run his fingers through Harry’s sleep-matted curls. Doesn’t wait for him for him to get his words together and laughs, maybe, when it takes Harry too long. There is a universe (maybe more than one) where their legs cannot tangle in a bed like this, where their hearts don’t match up, steady and rhythmic to the same beat. There is a universe like that. Maybe more than one.

But there is also this universe, this world, this reality, where Harry does have those things. Where he smiles a little, sleepy and slow, and leans down to kiss Louis good morning. Where he thinks _there is a universe inside me, inside you_ and that is true.

There is this universe, where sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn’t. Where things do not always go perfectly but they do always go. Where Harry gets Louis and Louis gets Harry, and they can connect their own constellations and move through their own galaxies and trace the edges of their own universes with gentle, wandering fingers.

There is only one universe that Harry is sure about, and it is this one.

\-----


End file.
